


Rain

by excaliburned



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excaliburned/pseuds/excaliburned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius is dead. Remus deals with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

> The line 'the reverberating thunder of his absence' is a quote from F Scott Fitzgerald.

Being the sort of person who's always entertained dreams of being a writer, Remus really believes that this could be his specialist subject.

So you'd think he'd be used to it, by now.

It's been five weeks and two days. Close enough to the event for people to still ask how he's doing, but not close enough for them to listen to the responses. And anyway, it was always such a quiet thing they had between them that he's not sure if other people realize quite how much he's lost.

Waking up is hardest.

8am, and it's raining. Every morning, without fail, he has to remind himself to breathe. It is a slow, systematic struggle for survival, as he tells himself to roll over onto his back and lift up his legs and swing them out and stand up, and dress, and wash, and brush his teeth, and carry on. It's his very own Cold War, with all of the fear and none of the glory.

 _I miss you. I miss you. Come back. Come back._

Remus Lupin does not break down. He never has before and he's certainly not about to start now, so the persistant drumbeat of agony in his head goes unspoken, even to himself. Obviously he lives alone.

The problem is, of course, that he's done this before, and so intermingled with the grief and the loss and the shadowy ache is the self inflicted belief that he should be coping much better. The difference is that last time there was a hefty dose of betrayal and fury to soothe the sting of loss, and his hurt could manifest itself into anger - which is, in Remus' opinion, considerably easier to deal with.

Though it was by no means easy.

This time there is anger, certainly, but with no direction. He rages at the cruelty of it all, how unfair it is that, and he despairs at himself for being so stupid as to expect - well, anything, really, other than this. The wolf in him seethes.

But this is all contained, all very carefully measured into half-hour slots where he can grit his teeth and take a deep breath and stare at nothing, and if he trembles then it's only for a few seconds, and it's nothing that can't be covered with a long sleeved jumper. Because Remus Lupin does not break down.

It's 11am.

 _Come back. Come back. I miss you. I miss you._

Sometimes he thinks it's pathetic how he's never known anything other than what they had. Surely that isn't normal - surely he shouldn't be thirty-something and still be pining over his teenage crush. Surely there should've been others, others that he could have loved and then lost, to guard himself from this crushing weight of heartbreak.

But he never did know anything else, and as such, everything that he is and does and knows and has is built around the man who died. Remus cannot go anywhere, or do anything, without experiencing a sickening lurch of memory. How do you start again? How do you completely start over when even the clothes on your back remind you of him? When you cannot even breathe without remembering the rise and fall of his chest in the night?

3pm. His hands curl around a cup of tea and he looks outside, where it rains and rains and rains. Five weeks, and two days. But Remus Lupin does not break down.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

He is so haunted by what he has lost that in some moments it is difficult to tell if he's real or a ghost himself.

The tea goes cold, the rain continues and he hasn't eaten yet today, and every creak in this old house is a door opening and a familiar face walking through, bright eyes and mischevious grin and "it was only a joke, silly old Moony, did you really think I'd ever leave you?".

Except it isn't. It's pipes. It's always pipes.

Thirty-something feels simultaneously too old and too young for this. He should be coping better, a man of his age - he should be able to deal with this, because people deal with it every day, and they often deal with far worse, and they cope, and they keep going, which Remus finds so pathetically difficult to do. The whole idea of getting over this feels like a physical journey, like it's something he has to _literally_ get over - and his joints ache just thinking of all the hills to climb, and his body grows cold imaging all the rivers he'll have to swim. It feels like something that will require planning and maps and special shoes with extra grip on the soles (and god knows, he needs to grip on to something). But there's no guidebook or manual - and Remus has always been such a fan of guidebooks and of manuals - and if there's a destination in sight, he can't see it.

But still Remus Lupin does not break down.

It's 6pm, and even though it's summer, it will be dark soon.

 _Come back. I miss you. I love you. Come back._

One day it will get easier. Everybody tells him this and he's happy to believe it - genuinely, he is. Scars heal and the sun rises and we do not forget, not ever, but we do move on. We keep going.

It's just that, for all his calm and composed demeanour, Remus is not actually that patient. He's a confusing mix of being desperate to get over it, now, and wanting to just revel forever in the exquisite agony of memories because they really are all he has left, and he doesn't know what he'll do when they're gone. He doesn't know who he'll be, or what he'll do, without the reverberating thunder of his absence.

Of Sirius' absence.

The name pounds over and over in his head.

 _Sirius. Sirius. Sirius. Sirius._

It is constant, unyielding, and Remus tries desperately hard to think of anything else - but it's futile; like trying to keep water in cupped hands, and the drips bleed through no matter how hard you squeeze your fingers, like the falling rain outside.

And then for some reason he's sat on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest and he can't remember how he got there except that now he is there, and each breath feels like it is wrenched from him with pliers. No tears fall but his eyes sting as if it's their sole purpose in life, and his nails dig so deep into clenched fists that they draw blood. He can't stand it - literally, he cannot stand for fear of collapsing under the weight of this thing, this immeasurable, impossible, immense grief.

But standing or not it crashes down on him all the same when he notices a half-eaten packet of digestives by the fireplace, and it's so typically Sirius to leave a biscuit-related mark of 'I was here' that it just _ruins_ Remus. His heart is heavy in his chest, his whole body heaves and bile rises in the back of his throat, and no matter how tight he closes his eyes salty drops squeeze through to betray him. His stomach twists in a knot too complex to untangle. It's too hard. It's too hard.

It is 10pm. The rain falls, and it is five weeks and three days - down to the very hour - after the loss of his lover, when Remus Lupin finally breaks down.


End file.
